


What Was Worse?

by didsomeonesayventus



Series: I Was a Bitter Dusk and You Were the Dawn So Sweet [5]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: (the implication for the setting here is that Master Xehanort won and good guys are on the run btw), Betrayal, F/M, Mercy Killing, Partner Betrayal, Stabbing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-13 07:49:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9113464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/didsomeonesayventus/pseuds/didsomeonesayventus
Summary: He was bitter and black, and she- so sweet and white -could not survive that.





	

“I thought you loved me.” Kairi wept.

His face- a face she had called so many times stupid or wonderful or handsome -was the perfect mask. Hard. Cold. Indifferent. Riku had always said he didn’t trust that face. He had always told her the Xehanort she knew and the Xehanort he had seen were two different people. She had always taken that as how amazingly close she was to him, how _special_ , how _important_ , how _needed_ , but now as her hand clutched the scarlet sash across his chest and her abdomen as her knees buckled it was evident Riku was warning her.

Xehanort was a man of many faces.

“I thought you loved me!” She said again, stronger, but still choked by the wet sound of life dripping from her lips.

He was looking down at her- not the usual way. Not the way where he bowed his head to her as a tree bowed to the wind or how the land bowed to waves. He held his head high, unbothered, proud, something better than her as he watched her from the bottom of his eyelids.

Kairi tried to pull herself to her feet, but she’d lost too much blood now, too much time, too much strength. She only sank further, held up only by the vice-like grip upon Xehanort. His shirt- white like the new beginning he’d been handed -looked like it was covered in petals. The petals an island flower left behind as she wilted.

“You don’t understand.” He said, using the same monotone he had always used, apparently.

“I understand _plenty_.” She growled, “Y-you-!” She coughed, body heaving, his shirt and sash stretched ever more closer to tearing. He lead her on like a pied piper, and now in this quiet moment he’d killed the prey that had fallen for the bait.

They’d already barely escaped with their lives from the catastrophe, were already on the run from his elder self with only the clothes on their back, the mana in their veins, the Keyblade in their hands, and the warmth of their embrace to their name. They were already so weak- _Kairi_ , was already so weak. It made the perfect point for breaking the last link fighting back.

She sighed, letting herself cry, letting her voice whine like an out of tune violin, “This was always the plan, wasn’t it? You never joined us, never tried to change.”

“Not always.” He said.

She pulled herself to her feet, not caring she had to rely on leaning on his weight to stay on her feet, “You _liar!_ ” She began sinking, her body dragging against his chest as if it was trying to cling to him, “You liar you never changed…”

“People are always changing, Kairi.” He said softly, “Sometimes you don’t notice it.”

Kairi pressed her head against his stomach. “I loved you.”

“I know.”

“I _loved you_.”

She watched her own blood pooling at her feet.

“You’ve said that.”

His dry wit was intolerable now.

They sat there like that, Xehanort rigid as a statue and Kairi trembling like a leaf. She cried, and cried, shoulders heaving, pausing to hack up more blood as she died slowly and painfully. He seemed to scarcely breathe, as if he was marble.

“Why?” She finally asked, voice quiet.

“They would have done worse.”

She looked up at him, demanding, dragging him down to eye level with her, “What’s worse than death?! What’s worse than feeling the blade of the one you love cleaving you in two?! What’s worse than being _stabbed in the back?!_ ”

His mask was flawless. “I would’ve done something terrible to you.”

“ _Terrible?_ ” She asked, falling to her knees, grabbing him with both hands now, dragging them to the ground, “You’ve already done something terrible.”

He kept watching her, fists at his side tight. How did he explain? How lost one’s self became under his influence? How stifling the light of another’s heart was like suffocating a child with their own pillow? How did he explain what hell he had witnessed and experienced, hell that could only be understood when it was too late?

How did he explain he was killing her for mercy?

“Monster…” Kairi spat in his face. “You were always a monster, always will be a monster…”

And Kairi slipped away before she saw the tears on his face.

**Author's Note:**

> say hi to angst and darkness


End file.
